PhilPassmore

That's correct Alan, and the plugs as you may have noticed have coloured collars, which denote whether they are 5 or 12v. I have also 'spiral wrapped' my various wires together to keep them organised. I have also bought a cheap length of 12v rubber heater strip from AliExpress, and have found that running it at 5v instead gives it a nice level of heat as a dew heater and self regulates without any control electronic components .

Had a few occasions when the supplied power connectors on various pieces of kit have proven to be very unreliable, so decided to try and do better; These pictures are of my solution, which is very simple but good and robust. A plastic box, fitted with ten 3 pin locking sockets. Each socket is supplied with 12v on one pin, 5v on nother, and a commonground. This allows any five or 12 volt device to be wired into the matching plug, so it picks up the required voltage, regardless of the socket they are plugged into. I have also fitted two 'legacy' power connectors, and a couple of USB sockets too. The box can be supplied from mains power, and utilise the built in 12 volt power supply, together with fan cooling. Alternatively, it is wired to accept 12v into the box directly. I have been using a E-bike battery pack, fed through a 'buck' converter to drop the voltage.

Here is my very first 'stacked' image of M42, produced from about 50 thirty second subs, manually triggered because the camera I am using doesn't have any sort of remote facility or intervalometer. I have modified the camera myself (Panasonic GF3, micro 4/3) by removing the IR filter.

This is just a quicky in my series of DIY (mis) adventures. I rather fancied the idea of one of the nice big chunky 'Losmandy' style dovetail plates, to complement the rigidity of my recently acquired EQ6 mount with my 150mm refractor (and also perhaps with a big reflector still under construction). However, they seemed quite expensive for what they are, so I just had to have a go myself. I bought a piece of flat aluminium 12mm thick and just over 70mm wide. Length is 500mm, and it cost me about £15. Originally the plan had been to mount the strip on an angle and mill the edge to the correct dovetail angle (which seems to be 60 or 30 degrees depending where you measure). It was however glaringly obvious that my dinky little mill just didn't have the capacity, so an alternative was sought. I have previously used a mitre chop saw with tungsten carbide tipped blade on aluminium, so I decided to give my similarly equiped table saw a go at the job. I wound the blade to the appropriate angle, and took it down to the minimum required to just deal with the metal thickness. I then took a whole load of very thin passes to cut first one side and then the other, using the saws fence to guide it. At this point, I have to say, probably in block capitals and underlined; if you are going to try this yourself, be bl@@dy careful. Use a pusher stick and keep your fingers miles from the blade. It will take no prisoners, and your digits will come off (literally) second best. Also wear good eye protection, as it makes a lot of very fine chips! It actually produces a reasonable finish, even if not milling machine standard. All edges were deburred, then it was drilled and countersunk to suit the mounting points I required.

Thanks for all the feedback, it's what I value, whether it's supportive of the way I have done things or if it's offering alternatives. It's how we learn and grow. I am very new to the astronomy scene and have so much to take on board.

I have said in other threads that I am new to astronomy, so if the direction I take in the search for great viewing takes a somewhat contrary turn that conflicts with general wisdom, please forgive me, it's just in my nature to get an idea stuck in my head and pursue it to my conclusion. This posting is about what is usually at the heart of all of our quests, a telescope that meets our needs. For some it is a good pair of binoculars, for others it's the biggest Maksutov that they can persuade their other halves to allow them to buy (or be single, or very good at keeping secrets). Having done a bit of exploring using a 250mm Dob with very questionable silvering (another project), I decided that there was little in the telescope world that couldn't be enhanced by increasing the aperture. There is after all, nothing to take the place of photons. The lure of a big refractor was strong, and there seemed a toss up between 'big' with very nice glass (and probably three slices of it), or 'very big' with less exotic silicon, and only two bits. The problem for me, is that in reality, both would be stretching my budget. So, in a fashion that those who know me would understand, I decided to build one myself. I know that cheap glass is probably frowned on, but I decided to give it a go. I bought a 154mm f 7.8 doublet from China, together with an aluminium cell to mount it in. This cell mounts onto a sectikn of common brown underground drainage pipe of almost the perfect diameter. A snug fit of the cell was ensured by using the 'soft' side of seld adhesive velcro strips. The cell is secured with three countersunk set screws. I could have taken the easy route and kept the tube the same diameter for its whole length, but it would have been extremely heavy and unwieldy, and finding mounting rings would have been more difficult and expensive. So originally, I stepped down a size in drainage pipe, which was ok, but still very heavy, and the thick walls of the pipe presented problems when mounting the focuser at the other end. So I made the switch to carbon fibre tube for the aft section. The two sections are linked with two very snug fitting delrin (a plastic) 'doughnuts', which with a good bearing surface area, and sufficient spacing ensure the tubes remain perfectly parallel. Again machine screws are used to secure both tubes to tbe delrin. The focuser mount is machined from aluminium, and internally threaded to accept the focusser screwing directly into it. A little silicon grease is used on the threads to prevent galling and binding that can sometimes happen on aluminium. The mount is secured in the carbon tube with yet another set of machine screws. Both tubes are lacking baffles (not got round to it), but they are both fully flocked with adhesive and flocking powder. It's a messy operation, but personally I think that the result is extremely good, to the extent I may not bother baffling. As you can see in the pictures, I have secured a handle onto the mounting rings, which are an off the shelf item with about half the thickness of the soft padding removed to get the fit onto the tube just right. The handle is designed for a camera carrying rig, but works well with helping get the scope onto its mount. On the opposite side of the rings to the dovetail rail I have fitted a bit of carbon fibre box section tube just to aid maintain straightness and parallelism. It has the added bonus of acting as a very coarse 'finder scope' by sighting through its length. I haven't got a lit to compare it to, but I am happy with it. It was great fun to build and incredibly satisfying to use. There is of course a significant blue fringe as its 'only' an achromat, but the addition of a Baader 'Fringe Killer' has made a huge reduction without cutting out too much light. Things to improve (aren't there always?) ; Perhaps doing the baffling as mentioned above, and coming up with a collimation system for the lens cell. As ever, feedback, questions and constructive criticism are welcome.

I was getting a little frustrated with my slightly clumsy adjustments to focus. Each attempt at adjustment resulting in several seconds of scope movement and inability to view the outcome of any adjustment, meaning I was likely to miss the focus point and having to repeat several times. I have a dual speed Crayford style focuser, it's a relatively inexpensive Chinese import fitted to my refractor. I have tuned and modified the focuser itself to smooth it and improve the internal drive and support, but I will leave that for another posting. So the next step for me seemed to be installing a motorised focus system, so I wouldn't have to touch the optical assembly during focusing. A stepper motor linked to a driver board looked a cheap and effective solution, so using my usual source for such bits (AliExpress, no affiliation), I obtained both, with the driver able to run off five volts, so useable from a USB power bank or similar. I tapped a couple of existing holes on the focuser, and used them to mount the assembled brackets which were made from some offcuts of carbon fibre from another historic project. I would under normal circumstances have used aluminium, but the carbon was to hand. A piece of right angle was created from an offcut of box section tube. The bracket is slightly isolated from the focuser with some rubber spacer washers, and the motor is isolated with a commercial cork gasket. I removed the fine focus knob from the focuser, and connected it to the motor with an adapter that allows a measure of mis-alignment without causing any problems. The driver board has various start/stop modes, and I have set mine so one button drives one way, and the other drives it the other way, with releasing it stops the motor. There is a speed adjuster on the board, and it's quite fussy getting it to a speed that drives well and smoothly and reliably. I think the limited current capacity of the board causes some stalling issues. Hopefully the pictures show what they need to without further explanation, but any questions, please ask away. Phil.

It certainly helps to dampen and stiffen things. Originally I only used the rectangular section pieces, but ran threaded rods down inside each box, and tightened into tension. Not actually sure the rods helped very much, I think all it did was change the resonant frequency. So in order to stiffen, I added the round section AND the concrete fill. Actually I think the concrete pile wobbles a bit too, so I am looking at adding three steel wires from the top of the column/bottom of the pier down to the concrete floor, a bit like tent guy ropes, and a turbuckle to tension them.

Hi everyone. I am an absolutely inveterate tinkerer, fiddler, maker and breaker (with hopefully not too much of the last). I only came into astronomy properly about 6-9 months ago, with the acquisition of a horrible Tasco 4 1/2 inch reflector with some dreadful little 0.9 inch eyepieces. However, catching my very first glimpse of a very fuzzy blob that was slightly less than circular, and I confidently decided actually WAS Saturn. Things have latterly improved on the equipment front, and I hope that I don't bore the community too much by posting what will probably be mostly pictures and some little description of things that I have made or modified. This posting is to show the pier I have made to mount my EQ5 Goto mount onto. Currently I am viewing from a raised wooden deck on the back of the house, that has a pretty good view of the southern sky. However, being raised and wood, vibration posed a big problem, with the slightest movement while tripod mounted , setting the view rocking and roling all over the place. My solution to that, was to switch to a pier base, attached to a concrete pillar, cast in some plastic drainpipe and set into the underlaying concrete yard surface. The pillar comes up to just below the deck surface, and has three threaded rods set into it that allow a reasonably easy and quick means of mounting the pier in a fairly accurately repeatable position, meaning the mount doesn't have to be polar aligned every time I want to use it. The pier was made from aluminium rather than steel, with a circular central tube, and three sort of outrigger rectangular box sections around the outside of the round tube. I chose aluminium because mostly it was what I had laying around but also because it would be a little lighter to mount and dismount. This latter benefit was pretty much lost when I decided to fill the central round part of the pier with concrete to stiffen and dampen resonances. I an passable at aluminium welding with a decent TIG welder I bought to do a van to Camper conversion during lockdown.The pier was made at a height that would provide comfortable general viewing, but I also made an extra extension piece that adds enough to make overhead viewing through a long refractor, reasonably comfortable. The base to actually mount the EQ mount onto required some lathe work ( I am blessed, having a Myford ML7 down in the shed). This base has three thumb screws to allow accurate leveling of the whole mount assembly. I hope this fits in with the purpose of the forum section, and I would welcome a little feedback as to whether I should post some of the other stuff I have done. Many thanks, Phil

Thanks for the input. The mount won't be permanently on a pier, but I will only have to move it about 6 feet from the patio doors, to my permanent pier mount point, just level with, and isolated from, the deck 'viewing area'.

Looking to upgrade my EQ5 goto mount, to an EQ 6 variant, and am wondering if having the combined AZ/EQ is worth the price premium? I really enjoy visual observing, but also quite like the challenge of astrophotography. Thoughts anyyone.

Built my own 6" achromat which I am really chuffed with.

My foster kids love seeing the planets too.

Have started recently, and wishing I had learned about astronomy earlier in my life.

Hope you manage to find some dark skies round Sheffield.

Yes, I lost access to the sales forum which was a pity.

Learning myself, but love the diy opportunities.

Oh for dark skies. Hoping for a trip to Orkney to visit friends, and skywatching.

Hi Simonas, just starting out myself.

Cheapo Chinese case.

I observe from a raised deck, which being flexible wood was somewhat 'sub-optimal' in the vibration department (ie, stand VERY still when observing). So I used a bit of plastic drainpipe (150mm) as a former, cut into the concrete yard and hammered in reinforcing rods, ran a scaffold tube up inside the former, and filled it with concrete. This brought me up to deck level, and I set threaded rods into the top of the concrete, and use those to bolt a homemade pier onto, that is completely isolated from the deck.

If you are a bit of a diyer, a 'boost' converter is a cheap simple option. It's what I use for the kids in the campervan. A bare board with a several amp capacity is easy to find, and dirt cheap if you are ok buying from somewhere like AliExpress.

Mods, if you think this would be better placed in one of the other sections, by all means move. It is just my first proper posting, and an intro. Hi everyone, I thought that I would introduce myself, and tell you a little about my short progression into the hobby. I'm possibly average in age for stargazing, at sixty one, and I so wish I had got into astronomy when I was younger. What I have been seeing and learning is just so much fun. I bought a really cheap 4 1/2 inch reflector a while ago (though with a discount from Ebay, it effectively cost me nothing). It came mounted on a cheap equatorial mount which I took the time to learn how to use, which definitely helped a lot. It came supplied with some cheap and nasty 0.95 inch eyepieces, which were almost bad enough to put anyone off astronomy in their own right. But with that scope, I actually saw Saturn and her rings. Ok, so it was actually a pretty small elongated blob, but you could tell what it was. I was so chuffed. About a year ago, I picked up a humungous home made 10 1/2" Dobsonian, all wood construction, and pretty rickety. No finderscope, but a full size focuser for which I bought a couple of mid range eyepieces. Now I know saying this will probably have all you die hards yelling at me, but I struggled to get that piece of furniture pointing at very much at all, other than the moon, which I must say, was utterly spectacular. I had never seen it with such clarity and detail. So this has prompted me to start thinking about building a goto system for the mighty Dob. Arduino based, driving some stepper motors, and at the same time seriously thinking about getting the mirror re-silvered, as it is significantly hazy. So, I tend to be a bit slow getting projects underway, as I put a lot into the planning phase. Therefore, I thought it would be nice to have a stop gap. Facebook marketplace found me the complete opposite of the Dob in the shape of a 60mm Meade refractor in its own little dedicated goto mount. This proved to be a great little scope (to my eyes at least) and portable enough to get dragged out in my campervan to darker skies. The camper incidentally was my Lockdown I build project. Six months of solid graft, but that's a story for another day. While playing with the Meade, I read up loads, learned tons, and actually got the scope to point at things I wanted, and TRACK them. This was a revelation. Not having to continually manually shift the mount made life so much easier and enjoyable. At this point, being a dedicated AliExpress follower, I decided to have a go at building my own refractor, and following the maxim of 'go big or go home', bought an achromat airspaced doublet from the said AliExpress, and the cell to hold it. I went mad, and got the 150mm x 1300 version. Construction is based around a section of underground drainpipe for the objective end, and some carbon fibre tube of smaller diameter for the eyepiece end. The objective cell is a perfect fit on the drainpipe. The coupling between the two sections is machined from 20mm thick plastic sheet, turned on my Myford lathe into two rings, retained with machine screws. The focuser, another AliExpress buy is quite a nice dual speed unit that required a 94mm x 1mm pitch thread ring to screw into the rear of the scope. This was made out of aluminium. Most of the other hardware was off the shelf from the same well known Chinese source, together with a star diagonal (2 inch being retained). Although I haven't yet baffled the scope, I have flocked the entire length, which was quite fiddly. I am not sure if baffles are completely necessary now, as the flocking really kills internal reflections of stray light. It's all set up on a Skywatcher EQ 5 Synscan mount, and when I recently got to point it at Saturn, I was absolutely gobsmacked! Yes, there is significant chromatic fringing, but what do you expect with a 150mm refractor, that only cost about £300 for the OTA? But seeing such detail as I could, especially through my recently acquired (off a Stargazer Lounge seller) Takahashi eyepiece was beyond what I was expecting. It is truly beautiful. I have been viewing both it and Jupiter every clear night for the last month, and every time it makes me gasp! Incidentally, the goto system on my little Meade died, so with a bit of hacking about, and making a mount, it's now been pressed into service as a finder scope. I am a bit restricted in my viewing, as my house blocks views to the north, so I am waiting for my first views of M31 as it creeps round from the east. I recently built a deck on the back of my slightly raised house, accessed from some French windows, and about a meter off the ground. Conscious that such a wooden structure is going to wobble like mad when the scope is on it, from the slightest footstep, I used another piece of the 150mm drainpipe from the scope build, as the former for a steel reinforced concrete pier that comes up to just below deck level, and is accesed through a section of removable decking. The pier is completely isolated from the deck, and the scope will mount on an extension of the pier, made up of left over bits of aluminium from the van conversion, TIG welded together, and retained to the pier proper with hand nuts. In the interim, I have aligned the tripod pretty well, then put brass marker studs into the deck in the location for each of the legs, meaning that as long as I don't disturb the head of the tripod, I can get pretty good polar alignment in a matter of moments. The pier should be even more accurate with some planned indexing pins. So,that's where I am. I love the tinkering aspect, and I adore seeing things that relatively few people have looked at. Stargazers is a great resource, and I thank you all. Phil.